Hours passed, slow as frozen serpents. The night thickened—deeper, heavier. And gradually, their bodies began to respond. Tingling in the limbs. Muscles groaning, but moving. One by one, the trio finally managed to stand—staggering, battered, but upright.
They wandered off to gather wood, scratching at the ground and roots, their movents clumsy but determined. Back by the rock, they lit a small fire—ager, flickering, but enough to break the damp and stir their minds awake.
They sat around it in silence, eating a simple but warm al that brought a hint of life back into their bones. And as they ate, they began pulling out the anima gems they’d gathered earlier.
The one from the Awakened Beast had been set aside. Placed on a stone, almost with silent reverence. No one had spoken of it directly, but everyone wanted it. It burned with curiosity, with temptation—what kind of essence could a monster that powerful hold?
So they pounced on the others instead. All harvested from second-tier creatures. Each held a good dose of raw essence, enough to strengthen their bodies, harden their flesh, reinforce what had been broken. But it had to be refined, purified. And that wasn’t painless. Or risk-free.
But they knew it: keeping up a pace like this—hunting, absorbing, surviving—was dangerous. But it was also the only way forward. The only way to prepare for the worst. The only way not to die next ti.
That night, at the edge of the bottomless chasm, none of them slept.
They stayed awake, eyes wide open, senses on edge. Sothing in the air unsettled them. A diffuse tension, invisible but omnipresent.
They kept thinking back to the last clearing they’d crossed. A place too calm, too neat. A space even the creatures of the area seed to avoid—as if life itself refused to exist there.
And now they knew why.
They’d stepped onto soone else’s territory.
Sothing stronger. Older. Hungrier.
That’s why they stayed alert, on the border of the abyss, the fire crackling between them but their gazes fixed on the forest—where the shadows didn’t move. Where maybe they were waiting to.
And so, the night finally withdrew, vanquished by the first pale glimrs of dawn. A bluish-gray sky slowly split the darkness, and already the trio was on the move—as if standing still too long might make them disappear.
That night had felt like an entire lifeti. A long pause of doubt, of silent pain, of tension stretched to the breaking point. But it had finally lifted. Swallowed by the morning light.
And to kill ti—or maybe to kill the dread—they’d co up with a ridiculous bet: the anima gem of the Awakened Beast put on the line... for whoever could do the most push-ups.
Yeah. Push-ups. After an all-nighter flirting with paralysis.
Unsurprisingly, the idea had co from Maggie. Of course. She knew her level, knew she could crush the other two at that ga without even trying. But she’d been smart enough to pitch it as a "friendly" challenge, almost playful, to avoid looking like a power-hungry predator. A subtle con, gift-wrapped in fair play.
And the other two? Well... they went along with it. Out of respect for the chain of command. Out of laziness. Or maybe just too damn exhausted to spot the scam.
Still, the little contest had its rits. After absorbing so much essence, their bodies needed to move, to sweat, to forge that new power into muscle and sinew. It wasn’t just about raw strength—it was about adaptation. Endurance. Survival.
They needed that conditioning. And Maggie had understood it before anyone else.
Back to the present.
The sun was up now, scattering the last shreds of shadow. The group moved with a steady pace, walking the thin line between the dark forest to their left and the dizzying chasm to their right.
And as expected, there were only a few steps left.
Just a few more ters before they’d completely circled the abyss.
Before leaving behind this strange zone, this haunted territory claid by sothing they hadn’t seen—but sure as hell didn’t want to see again.
The path opened up. A new stretch of forest. More traps. More monsters.
Now that the chasm was behind them, the trio erged into a completely different landscape. The atmosphere shifted entirely—no more lingering tension, no more sneaky shadows lurking at every turn. In front of them stretched a vast golden plain, gently caressed by the first light of day.
It wasn’t quite a forest. A few scattered trees stood here and there like solitary sentinels. But overall, it was mostly tall, blond grass, swaying in a gentle breeze. The sky, washed clean by the night, stretched out in an almost unreal pale blue, and the last remnants of nocturnal clouds slowly lted on the horizon.
The ground, still damp with dew, crunched faintly under their feet. A narrow winding path snaked through the grass, as if inviting them to leave behind the forest’s oppressive edge and lt into this new clarity.
Dylan stopped for a second, squinting against the soft light. There was sothing peaceful here. Deceptively peaceful. The kind of beauty that made you want to lower your guard... and would gladly punish you for doing so.
"Looks like a goddamn postcard," he muttered.
Maggie snorted. "Yeah. And that’s usually the kind of place where you’ve got a predator hiding just out of fra."
Élisa, silent, scanned the area with a more focused, almost ditative gaze. "The land’s quiet... look over there."
She pointed off in the distance—way off to the left—where mountains lood on the horizon, as if sulking behind the white mist that blocked the path.
And among them, a shape rose, towering over everything—like a skyscraper gone mad, hundreds of floors tall. The trio saw the silhouette of a gargantuan skull, upside down, its tooth-like protrusions the size of entire houses frozen toward the sky. Massive twisted horns, as large as the mountains around them, pierced the ground, keeping the skull from righting itself.
"I guess we’re close, huh?" Dylan asked.
"Yeah. That’s the upside-down skull we were told about," Élisa replied, a faint smile on her face.
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